


Something To Hold On To

by Rrismo



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Choking, Lalo is a tease, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rough Sex, Substance Abuse, They both bottom, it's equality, past Tuco/Nacho, they both top
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:20:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rrismo/pseuds/Rrismo
Summary: “I may have a penchant for cuddling, but you will be happy to hear that I’m not all that romantic when it comes to sex”, Lalo said cheerily.“Thank god”, Nacho grunted into the sheets.Sometimes your subconscious is trying to tell you something, and sometimes it’s just full of shit. And sometimes the only thing that can take the edge off is sex with your boss.
Relationships: Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca/Ignacio "Nacho" Varga
Comments: 26
Kudos: 108





	Something To Hold On To

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: The meth girls have names now!

That thing that people say happens right before you die, where your life flashes before your eyes? It gets old really quick.

At some point, you know all the scenes your mind will jump to. It stands to reason that if your brain keeps coming back to them throughout what are presumably the last seconds of your life, these moments hold a certain importance, a significance. Any meaning whatsoever. Maybe there is something comforting in them, maybe they make you see what led you here, and that in hindsight, everything has been connected somehow.

Nacho had found that they didn’t mean shit. They were just the product of his panic-addled brain desperately grasping for something to hold on to.

First time it had happened was when Tuco had still been around. Completely hopped up on meth, he had pinned Nacho against the inside of a bathroom stall. It had been the worst conceivable moment to make out. They were meeting customers at their front, big customers, and Gonzo and No-Doze wouldn’t be able to keep them busy forever. Tuco had never been exactly reasonable in his thinking, but it was especially bad since he had started using again. 

He bit more than he kissed, especially when he was like this.

Nacho had tried to fetch the revolver from out of the back of Tuco’s waistband - he always did, just as a precaution - when suddenly Tuco had grabbed him by the wrist, turned Nacho around to shove him face first into the stall wall, twisted Nacho’s arm behind his back and jammed the muzzle of his Taurus into the soft part between Nacho’s neck and his jaw. “You’re trying to get my gun from me, huh?”, he had yelled over and over, frantic and spitting with every word. “You’re trying to pull some trick on me?”

It was almost laughable to Nacho now how scared he had been back then. He had never been threatened with a locked and loaded revolver in his entire life at that point, and in that moment, Nacho had been absolutely sure he was going to die. He had always feared he was gonna go like this, in a grimy bathroom, getting it on with Tuco Salamanca of all people.

He couldn’t recall how he had talked himself out of it. All Nacho remembered was the sudden intensity with which he had seen moments from his life passing through his mind, and one had stood out in particular. Something about the kitchen in his papá’s house, yellow afternoon light pouring in through the windows while Nacho sat at the kitchen table, his dangling feet barely touching the tiled floor. He was bent over his homework with a pen in hand and tears streaming down his face.

That was it.

Nothing relevant, nothing remarkable. Just his brain going back to a random point in time and zooming in on it to distract itself from what was happening in the present.

And that was when it had hit Nacho. There was no point to any of this. There was no controlling it. It was just him, powerless, against the absolute meaninglessness of it all.

It followed him wherever he went. And if he wasn’t careful, it started pulling him under again more and more often, made him retreat inside of himself, turned him into a shell of a person, only acting and reacting without thinking or feeling, as if asleep while wide awake. A welcome change from what felt like the world was constantly exploding and imploding around him, pressing in on him from all sides, but dangerous, too. He couldn’t afford getting sloppy, not now. Not with Fring breathing down his neck, not with Lalo watching his every move, not until papá was sa-

“Babe?” A soft, sleepy voice made him look up. He had just gotten home, was still wearing his jacket, and had walked into the living room. Jo and Amber were sharing a couch in front of the messy coffee table. The other couch was occupied by Lalo Salamanca. He was lounging on it with his long legs stretched all the way out, naked feet poking over the edge of the armrest.

The girls didn’t seem to be too bothered by him. They barely shot him a questioning glance as he reached for a bright yellow bag of candy. “Hey there!”, he greeted Nacho without looking away from the TV screen.

“What are you doing here”, Nacho asked before he could stop himself.

“Watching Mariana de la Noche. Sit down, join us! Look, here comes Ignacio!” Lalo pointed at the screen where a man with a face almost as smooth as the soft focus lens was lamenting the death of his true love. “He doesn’t know she’s alive yet!”, Lalo said and munched another candy. 

Nacho stifled a sigh. “You came to my house to watch soap opera?”

“Well, no, I wanted to discuss some business with you. Then I met these charming young ladies”, Lalo nodded his head in the direction of the two half naked women sitting cross legged on the other couch, ”who told me you’d be back in about half an hour. So we decided to kill some time!”

“I don’t get it”, Jo said and grimaced at the screen in confusion. “Didn’t you say Marcia helped Mariana before? Why is she plotting against her now?”

“No, you're mix up Marcia und Maria again”, Lalo chided her softly. “Maria is the weird nature lady, Marcia is the femme fatale, and Mariana is our lovely heroine hopelessly in love with Ignacio.” At the last words he shot Nacho a short glance and a wink.

“You’re wasting your breath”, Nacho said and regarded the girls, whose eyes were transfixed to the screen in a hollow fascination that had little to do with Marcia’s evil plotting. “They’ll forget everything you just told them in about a minute.”

“Ay, cómo echar margaritas a los cerdos...”, Lalo sighed.

Nacho reached for the remote on the coffee table, but Lalo snatched it away just in time. 

“I thought you wanted to discuss business”, Nacho said.

“I do! But first, we finish the episode.” The sharp undertone in Lalo’s cheerful voice made it clear that he didn’t accept any backtalk on this.

Resigned to his fate, Nacho got himself a chair from the kitchen and sat down next to the others. For a minute he considered getting some shut-eye while Lalo was watching TV. It had been about a week since Nacho had gotten any proper sleep. That plan was thwarted by Lalo’s inability to shut his mouth for two seconds. Undeterred by the fact that he was the only one in the room entranced by the plot, he kept commenting on the show, on how good the acting was, and on how cleverly the twists were set up. 

Time must have gone by with Nacho being only half present again, because the next thing he knew, the girls had fallen asleep and Lalo swiped one of their meth pipes. “Don’t tell me you smoke with this”, he said with furrowed brows and twirled the pipe between his fingers. “Qué asco…!”

Nacho just gave him a sidelong glance without answering.

Lalo snatched the torch lighter from the table, got up from the couch and turned to stand right between Nacho’s open legs, hovering over Nacho in his chair. “Look, I’m not judging or anything. But I’d prefer you keep a clear head.” Lalo squinted down at Nacho and used the torch to heat the pipe. “Are you really that desperate…?”

It was no coincidence that to hold out the smoking pipe in front of Nacho, Lalo had to put it right in front of his own crotch.

There was no reason at all to play Lalo’s games.

Nacho leaned in and took a drag. It tasted like shit, as was expected from a pipe with burned product.

“Atta boy”, Nacho heard Lalo murmur through a grin. “Just be honest with me. Show me what you want.”

Through the subdued kick spreading in his mind, that seemed like a reasonable idea to Nacho. For example, why didn’t he just fess up right here and now? He could just be honest, for once in his life. Sure, it would kill him, and his papá as well. But at least he’d finally be free. 

There was something else though, an easier way to deal with this. There had been one particular thing he’d been meaning to tell Lalo for a while now. Fortunately, he had also forgotten why it might be better to keep it to himself. So he got up on his legs, grabbed Lalo by the collar, pulled him so close their lips were almost touching and growled into what little space was left between them: “Give me a reason - any reason - and I’m going to fuck your brains out.”

-

It was just so silly. The memory wasn’t even particularly clear. Nacho couldn’t make heads or tails out of it. He had been sitting at the kitchen table, crying over his homework. It had been an assignment he should have finished over the course of the entire week. But he had been slacking, and now he had to finish all of it in one day. Papá had told him he wasn’t allowed to go outside until he was done.

Someone had come by, and that was the most ridiculous part, Nacho didn’t even remember who it had been. Could have been one of the older kids from the neighborhood. Maybe the girl with the freckles who he’d had a crush on in third grade. She had come by looking for his dad and had found Nacho like this. He remembered being terribly embarrassed. But she must have felt pity for him, as she offered to finish the assignment. He agreed, and she had even gone through the effort of attempting to imitate his terrible handwriting for him.

Nacho had handed in the assignment, happy to finally be able to play with Domingo and the other kids again.

The next day, the teacher had been furious with him. His handwriting had been barely legible, she reprimanded him. She had made him write it all over again, and papá, goddamn ever attentive papá who had seen through the trick, had grounded him for a week.

Why couldn’t he forget that yellow light that had poured in through the window and the sounds of the chair creaking under his dangling legs?

-

Nacho realized he must’ve been pretty far gone, because the part of him on the steering wheel was absolutely convinced he had met Lalo at a club. Not that he had the time for clubs lately. But he could see it so clearly, could see himself watching Lalo from across the room for a while, planning his next move, chatting Lalo up, flirting with him over a drink, and when the neon light and the raggaeton beats from the speakers hit just right, Nacho got so close to Lalo he could feel the heat radiating from the other man’s body and his breath on his cheek. No threats looming over his head. Just a good time. Lalo wasn’t exactly the kind of handsome Nacho would have gone for with his weird hip dad flair, but he was charming and looked good, once he stopped grinning like the cat that got the cream. What a nice thought. Nacho didn’t feel like pondering about how much he wanted it to be true. 

Lalo had his hands leisurely clasped behind Nacho’s back, who held Lalo’s legs in a vice grip by the thighs. The weight of Lalo’s legs over his back shouldn’t have turned him on this much, and the way Lalo’s shoulders strained against the bedsheet in the dim light shouldn’t have been the most gorgeous sight that he could remember witnessing. He couldn’t look away from Lalo’s mouth opening around his husky breath and the way he bared his teeth, and was it Lalo’s groans or the tremor that shot through the strap when Lalo clenched around it that made Nacho’s head spin like a merry-go-round? It was probably the meth.

“Hey, Nachito… that all you can do?”, Lalo chuckled between groans. 

“Do you ever shut up?”, Nacho retorted, as Lalo wiggled out of the grip on his legs and instead wrapped them around Nacho’s hips by himself. Nacho in turn grabbed the headboard, giving him the right angle to fuck so hard into Lalo it made the other man throw his head back. Lalo came after a couple more thrusts and the lack of restraint with which he dragged his fingernails over Nacho’s back had to be deliberate. Nacho could feel the deep red streaks this would leave on his skin for days to come, marking him as the Salamanca’s prey.

The thought of it drove Nacho over the edge as well. As if to tease him, he felt Lalo roll his hips forward, pushing the strap-on flush against all of Nacho's weak spots and making him press his mouth against his biceps to keep himself from screaming. Nacho let his body collapse next to Lalo and surrendered to his own heavy breathing. He wriggled out of the strap-on harness and carelessly tossed it into a distant corner of the room. Another problem for future Nacho to take care of.

Lalo threw one floppy arm over Nacho’s side. He seemed to be pretty satisfied with this arrangement, his hand resting on Nacho’s ass and his nose nuzzling the crook of Nacho’s neck. “Those are some pretty swanky beddings”, Lalo remarked, stretched his legs on the soft fabric and pulled Nacho closer into an embrace.

A dark and sticky feeling spread through Nacho’s insides at that. This was not helping. This was not what he wanted. This was not enough. He grabbed Lalo’s wrist and pulled his hand from his ass. “Either you touch me properly, or you don’t touch me at all”, he all but commanded.

Now it was Lalo’s turn to be annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to fall asleep. He sized Nacho up, the corner of his mouth just beginning to tighten into a displeased line.

In a different situation, one that hadn’t involved substances of questionable origins, Lalo’s expression probably would have given Nacho pause. With things the way they were though, he only held onto Lalo’s wrists tighter. “You give me what I need, and I give you what you want.”

“And what might that be?”, Lalo asked, returning to his old insufferable smugness.

Nacho shifted his body onto him. His weight pressed Lalo into the sheets, and Nacho dragged his teeth over the tendons in Lalo’s neck, his larynx, searching for a soft, vulnerable piece of skin to bite into. “Fuck me”, he hissed against Lalo’s neck. He didn’t care that he was being selfish. He needed this, right now.

The chest underneath Nacho rose in a deep breath, well, as deep a breath as was possible with Nacho on top. Lalo didn’t seem happy with Nacho pinning him down like that, but there was little he could do about it. Nacho was curious what Lalo had planned now, because one thing was for sure, he was too heavy for the other man to just push him away.

All of a sudden, Lalo shoved two fingers into Nacho’s mouth and took a hold of his lower jaw like that. Nacho probably could have bitten down on them, but he was too surprised to really do anything other than follow the rough movement of the hand guiding him down from Lalo and back onto the mattress. Lalo didn’t let go though. He forced Nacho onto his knees, pried his mouth open, held his tongue down with his index finger and looked down on him. “Only cause you ask so nicely”, Lalo said.

He let go of Nacho’s jaw to grab him by the back of his neck instead and shoved him forward, down on all fours. The rough grip and the impact went right to Nacho’s crotch. That was by far the best part about fucking while high on meth. He didn’t even have to give a shit about what he looked like, immediately lifting up his ass for Lalo to cherish. He received a painful smack across one cheek. A small groan escaped him as the other man positioned himself behind him and grabbed him by the hips. Another smack made Nacho grasp for the bedsheets, and another one made him bite his lip to stifle an outright moan.

The lube was still lying on the bedside table where Nacho had left it before. Lalo grabbed it, ignoring the condoms right next to it, and damn bastard that he was, he wasn’t even trying to be coy about it. “I may have a penchant for cuddling, but you will be happy to hear that I’m not all that romantic when it comes to sex”, Lalo said cheerily.

“Thank god”, Nacho grunted into the sheets.

When Lalo set about preparing him, Nacho finally began to sense something like impatience in his movements. There was no excessive teasing, no slow and deliberate toying with him. He was just getting the job done, eager for where it was taking them.

“Get the pillow”, he ordered Nacho, and with a bewildered glance over his shoulder, Nacho complied.

He held the pillow between his arms. “Like that?”, he asked, but the last word was turned into a drawn out moan as Lalo began to push inside of him, only a little, just to pull out, and then back in.

Nacho was already afraid this was what Lalo had planned for him and opened his mouth to tell Lalo to hurry the fuck up, when his head was shoved into the pillow with half of Lalo’s body weight. Simultaneously, Lalo ran his entire length up Nacho’s cunt, making him yelp into the pillow. A big mistake, as it turned out. He had given up valuable oxygen that he should have held onto, because the force with which Lalo was pressing him down into the fabric didn’t allow Nacho to take a single breath.

Nacho struggled, clawed at the sheets, desperately tried to get a hold of Lalo’s hand pressing him down, but he couldn’t get a proper grip on it. All the while Lalo was mercilessly driving into him, pulling out almost completely before every single thrust. Nacho’s head was spinning, and yet he couldn’t help but push back against Lalo, granting him even better access. He felt his back muscles gradually straining into paralysis, his hips bucked, but there was no escaping Lalo’s fierce grip.

And by god, it felt good.

No matter how Nacho tried to fight him, Lalo had him pinned down in every sense of the word. There was a possibility that Nacho could have just thrown the other man off of him. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen, maybe it was the slight panic kicking in, but Nacho felt a terrible cramp creeping up his right leg, rendering that option impossible.

Through all the pointless flailing and scratching, there was a bliss unfurling in Nacho’s mind, right where the ugly, sticky mess had been before. This was what it all came down to. It was just him, powerless, against the absolute meaninglessness of it all. And there was some comfort in that.

Right when Nacho felt like he was going to pass out any second, Lalo pulled him back up, heaved him up by the back of the neck like a drowning man is lifted over the surface of the water. Nacho coughed and gasped, and Lalo had the kindness to slow down the pace of his thrusts enough for him to recover a little.

He wasn’t done with Nacho yet though. Just when Nacho started feeling remotely safe again, Lalo went for his G-spot with a precision that was nothing short of eerie.

There was no defense left to protect Nacho anymore. On his knees and with his chest pressed into the mattress, Nacho couldn’t keep his moans in any longer. In his delirium, he gasped them into the pillow right where it was wet from his drool, hoarse, and breathy, and open, and vulnerable for Lalo to drink in.

Nacho sensed the cathartic warmth of his orgasm building inside. But right then, as if he'd sensed it, Lalo slowed down to an agonizingly sluggish speed. Nacho couldn’t speak, he couldn’t protest. He could only let the other have his way and hope that driving Nacho insane would get boring soon, while he prayed to whatever higher power was listening to bring him release.

“La… lo…”, he managed to get out between gritted teeth. “Por favor…” 

And finally, Lalo had mercy on him. Skilled fingers slipped between Nacho's folds and rubbed him in time with Lalo's thrusts. It only took about two seconds for Nacho to come undone. The orgasm that ripped through him was so violent his vision went white for a moment. It drove through him from head to toe and made him arc his back against Lalo’s chest, made him arc it so far it almost hurt. He must have screamed, because he could hear the echo of it coming back from the walls, but his mind was reeling, and all Nacho knew was that Lalo was claiming him, coming inside of him, biting his shoulders and grasping one of Nacho’s hands with his own, entwining their fingers into the sheets.

Barely conscious, Nacho could feel an arm wrapping around his chest, and he was pulled into an embrace that he was too weak to fight off this time. “Lo hiciste muy bien, Ignacio”, he heard Lalo whisper, a crooked grin clearly audible in the words.

Before Nacho fell asleep, he leaned over Lalo and gave him a deep, slow kiss.

For a second, it felt like peace.

-

It was way too early in the morning when Nacho was awakened by the sound of mariachi love songs blaring through his apartment. He crawled under his blanket in a futile attempt to escape from the noise and hid there for a while. Yes, he needed a shower, and badly, but there were worse things than being filthy.

The blanket was lifted, which revealed a completely dressed, coiffed, and disgustingly mirthful Lalo smiling down on him. “Good morning, Ignacio! Rise and shine! Want to join the girls and me in the kitchen for breakfast? I made chilaquiles rojos!”

Nacho didn’t even ask where Lalo could’ve gotten the ingredients from so quickly. He also didn’t wonder why Lalo hadn’t just left the moment he had woken up in his bed. It seemed weirdly fitting that Lalo had no idea when to leave - or he did know, and just didn’t care. One thing was for sure, there hadn’t been anything but old takeout in Nacho’s fridge.

Seeing how it was obviously pointless to argue (and taking his growling stomach into consideration), Nacho got out of bed, stepped under the shower and did as he was told.

The chilaquiles were probably delicious, but that didn’t register with Nacho as he wolfed them down, much to the amusement of Lalo and the girls.

“Be careful, baby! I know you’re hungry, but if you gobble your breakfast up like that, you’re gonna get a tummy ache”, Amber giggled and affectionately petted Nacho’s cheek.

“That reminds me”, Lalo said. “You know what word I learned while taking care of business involving some German guy? Verscli-… Wait, don’t laugh, it’s typical German shit, really long and complicated.” Lalo concentrated. “Verschlimmbessern!”, he said. “That was it. Verschlimmbessern.”

The girls tried to repeat the word, but failed miserably. They laughed. “What does it mean?”

“It’s what you do when you try to improve a situation, but you only make it worse”, Lalo explained and collected the empty plates. “Those damn Germans, they really got a word for everything.”

Yellow light poured in through the windows, and Nacho could hear his chair creak underneath him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked it, feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you think!


End file.
